


From This Far Away

by Alithea



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 12:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13481475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alithea/pseuds/Alithea
Summary: Relena reflects on the difference distance makes. Just a short introspective peice eleven years after the war.





	From This Far Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riskbreakered](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riskbreakered/gifts).



From the window of the shuttle the earth was a beautiful blue gem, and from that same distance the other planets Relena traveled by to get to various colonies looked the same only in different colors. It was when you got close that things lost more and more of their luster. When you could see the very heart of something, then you could see everything that was wonderful and awful about it. Her past from a distance looked just as flawless as her future, but if she picked it all apart and moved in she could see it all, all the damage and repair, all the wonder and loveliness. There was no comfort in realizing these things. Someone better prepared for her lot in life might see it as a sort of cosmic mediation and way to look at life. She was equally cursed and blessed, and it felt heavy around her neck.

No one could have known that a fourteen she would have been thrust so unwillingly into a life she never asked for. She could see three faces that ate up her nightmares for all they had given and taken from her. Her father had not been her father, and she only learned that truth when he was dying and could not offer her more guidance. Her brother was distant and made no effort to really help her, made excuses for his unfitness to rule a broken and forgotten kingdom. She loved them both still, and could see looking closer all the reasons why their actions were correct, but also wrong. And then there was the woman who literally blew up her world. A woman who she still blamed and yet somehow forgave. Everything was chaos. The universe was chaos, endless vacuum encompassing burning stars. 

She sighed.

She needed to sleep and the shuttle flight out to the colony she was visiting was meant to be her chance. She was sleeping worse and worse, and wondering if she could let go of some of her responsibilities for a while. If maybe at twenty-five she was due the chance to step away and just be another face in the crowd. Knowing that would never be the case. She would always be known, and known to many. History written over the last eleven years had her name written all over it, and her face emblazoned in monument. 

Relena shut her eyes and took in deep breath, released it, and continued a few more times. It was a breathing exercise that had been recommended to her to relax and calm her mind. Sometimes it worked, lately it had not, but she was still too stubborn to ask for sleeping pills because she didn't want to grow dependant on them. 

She opened her eyes when she felt a touch on her wrist. She looked up into the face of Preventer who told her the shuttle would be arriving in a few minutes. She tried not to begrudge the young man of denying her what could have been a good ten minutes of rest. Instead she asked if there was time for a quick coffee and one of those bags of pretzels the crew had offered earlier in the flight. Her escort leapt to fulfill her request and she wondered how old he was when she was Queen of the World. 

She wondered if her face on the television had inspired him join the Preventers so young, or was he, like so many others, already a part of the battles; had he joined because he didn't know how to be anything other than a fighter. Then she fought the hard war within herself to try and not think of the boys, who were no longer boys, the pilots. Some who were still fighting, and some who were fighting but not with weapons, and the two who slipped away into the quiet because they wanted to try (needed to try) to be anything other than fighters, soldiers, warriors. 

Her escort returned with cup of coffee and a bag of peanuts, which were probably better for her than the pretzels in the long run. She ate and drank quickly, praying the small collection of calories would do what it could to keep her upright and relatively calm. She was not coming to this colony for a vacation. She was who the Earth Sphere President sent in as a nuclear option, because by now she had seen everything in politics, just had she had seen much in war. And no matter how much she had learned she always ran straight into a fight with a call in her heart she could not repress: Come and kill me. 

Relena could not ever say how much of that bombast she had shouted from recklessly throwing herself into harm's way she ever really meant. Had she just been chasing the pretty boy with the sad eyes or had she meant it? Still, it was her battle cry, her wave of the hand, an incitement, and challenge to her opponents to give her all they had. She could take it, and she would turn it all against them. 

A quick moment to fix her hair and pinch her cheeks into life as she grabbed her things and prepared for the barrage of press that awaited her. Her escorts preparing themselves to head off the crowds and search for threats. Relena Darlian took a deep breath and from a distance this was just like any other day. From so far away it was like every trip she had been on before, but when she picked it apart, when she stared into the darkness just outside the shuttle windows at the pinpoints of stars in the distance, she could see the chaos and knew this was the beginning of her end.


End file.
